Visual Contrasts Between iOS 6 and iOS 7

The notifications panel — which was introduced in iOS 5 and which you still access by sliding your finger down from the top of the screen — gets a major makeover in iOS 7. First, Apple has split notifications into three tabs: Today, All, and Missed. The Today tab includes information from the Calendar app, and stock and weather data from Yahoo. All is basically the same notifications you’ve always seen in previous versions of iOS. The Missed tab will show you notifications you’ve missed and haven’t acted on yet. One thing you might be sad to see go when you upgrade: there’s no longer a tappable widget that lets you update Twitter or Facebook from inside the Notifications panel.

Safari

Safari gets a major tune-up in iOS 7, but there are some features for power users that need explaining. For instance, there’s a “back” gesture now: simply swipe from the left side of the screen to the right. Reverse that gesture to go forward a step.

Safari now also allows you to open more than nine browser tabs at once, but this means it’s easier to leave too many old tabs open. Open your tab switcher and you’ll see the open tabs all stacked up vertically. To kill unwanted tabs, throw them off the left side of the screen — the motion is similar to the app switcher, but you toss the tabs to the side as opposed to upward.

Lastly, if you’re on a web page and you want to access the bottom navigation bar with your bookmarks, the back and forward buttons, and the tab switcher, just scroll up a little.

Search My Phone

Instead of placing iOS’s Spotlight search in the ancillary screen to the left of the first homescreen, it’s omnipresent in iOS 7. You just have to know how to access it. Swipe downwards on your homescreen (from somewhere in the middle, not from the top — that summons the Notifications panel) to search your device. One major note: Spotlight no longer searches Google or Wikipedia, so you’ll have to do that in Safari.

Improved App Updates

One of the biggest pain points in previous versions of iOS was Apple’s App Store updates, which never offered the most pleasant user experience. Starting in iOS 7, apps update automatically (if you want them to) and if you download apps using two Apple IDs, you’ll no longer have to manually sign in and out if you simply want to update one app — it will ask you for the appropriate Apple ID and password for the account that downloaded the app.

Keep an eye out for the new “updating” icon: a square stop symbol surrounded by a progress wheel. We could be seeing that icon all over Apple products very soon.

Embiggen Text

This is a new feature in iOS 7, so there is no real equivalent in iOS 6: the ability to change the system-wide text size. You can make your SMS texts super-huge or magnifying-glass-tiny by dragging the Text Size slider. Find it under the General category in the Settings app. Change this setting on your parents iPhone and iPad; your mom will thank you.

Block Callers

Finally, iOS gets a method to ignore calls and texts from the annoying ruffians in your life. Android’s had this feature through apps for a while, and it’s about time we saw it on iOS. Ironically, to block a caller, you have to first add them to your Address Book. Find his or her contact, and scroll to the bottom. Block ’em. They’ll never know.

Multitasking

Although iOS has had multitasking since iOS 4, the new update adds live previews and a handy gesture for closing apps you don’t want. Just like before, double tap the home button to access the multitasking window, and if you want to close an app, swipe up (a gesture stolen from WebOS.)

Audio FaceTime

For Apple users who hate videoconferencing, but want to make voice-over-IP calls, FaceTime now does audio. Using an internet connection instead of your minutes, Voice-Only FaceTime call is basically the equivalent of an iMessage phone call.

Option for Text Alignment Changes in iOS

There is no setting for justified alignment for text you only have center, left and right. If you want justified alignment where every line has the same amount of characters spacing or something like that you can format the text entered to have carriage returns after x amount of characters or words, or something like that.